Wear-resistant, superabrasive compacts are utilized in a variety of mechanical applications. For example, polycrystalline diamond compacts (“PDCs”) are used in drilling tools (e.g., cutting elements, gage trimmers, etc.), machining equipment, bearing apparatuses, wire-drawing machinery, and in other mechanical apparatuses.
PDCs have found particular utility as superabrasive cutting elements in rotary drill bits, such as roller cone drill bits and fixed cutter drill bits. A PDC cutting element typically includes a superabrasive diamond layer (also known as a diamond table). The diamond table is formed and bonded to a substrate using an ultra-high pressure, ultra-high temperature (“HPHT”) process. The substrate is often brazed or otherwise joined to an attachment member, such as a stud or a cylindrical backing. The substrate is typically made of tungsten or tungsten carbide.
A rotary drill bit typically includes a number of PDC cutting elements affixed to a drill bit body. A stud carrying the PDC may be used as a PDC cutting element when mounted to a bit body of a rotary drill bit by press-fitting, brazing, or otherwise securing the stud into a receptacle formed in the bit body. The PDC cutting element may also be brazed directly into a preformed pocket, socket, or other receptacle formed in the bit body.
Conventional PDCs are normally fabricated by placing a cemented carbide substrate into a container or cartridge with a volume of diamond crystals positioned on a surface of the cemented carbide substrate. A number of such cartridges may be loaded into an HPHT press. The substrates and volume of diamond crystals are then processed under HPHT conditions in the presence of a catalyst material that causes the diamond crystals to bond to one another to form a matrix of bonded diamond crystals defining a diamond table. The catalyst material is often a metal-solvent catalyst, such as cobalt, nickel, iron, or alloys thereof that is used for promoting intergrowth of the diamond crystals.
In one conventional approach, a constituent of the cemented carbide substrate, such as cobalt from a cobalt-cemented tungsten carbide substrate, liquefies and sweeps from a region adjacent to the volume of diamond crystals into interstitial regions between the diamond crystals during the HPHT process. The cobalt acts as a catalyst to promote intergrowth between the diamond crystals, which results in formation of bonded diamond crystals. Often, a solvent catalyst may be mixed with the diamond crystals prior to subjecting the diamond crystals and substrate to the HPHT process. During the HPHT process other components of the cemented carbide substrate, such as tungsten and carbon, may also migrate into the interstitial regions between the diamond crystals. The diamond crystals become mutually bonded to form a matrix of polycrystalline diamond (“PCD”), with interstitial regions between the bonded diamond crystals being occupied by the solvent catalyst.
The presence of the solvent catalyst in the diamond table is believed to reduce the thermal stability of the diamond table at elevated temperatures. For example, the difference in thermal expansion coefficient between the diamond grains and the solvent catalyst is believed to lead to chipping or cracking in the PDC during drilling or cutting operations, which consequently can degrade the mechanical properties of the PDC or cause failure. Additionally, some of the diamond grains can undergo a chemical breakdown or back-conversion to graphite via interaction with the solvent catalyst. At extremely high temperatures, portions of diamond crystals may transform to carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, graphite, or combinations thereof, thus, degrading the mechanical properties of the PDC.
One conventional approach for improving the thermal stability of PDCs is to at least partially remove the solvent catalyst from the PDC by acid leaching. However, removing the solvent catalyst from the PDC can be relatively time consuming for high-volume manufacturing.
The abrasion and impact resistance of the PCD depends on the amount of diamond-to-diamond bonding as well as the amount of other constituents, such as the solvent catalyst, graphite, tungsten, and carbon that migrate into and throughout the superabrasive matrix during the HPHT process or are removed from the PDC during the leaching process. These properties, in turn, depend on the composition of the cemented carbide substrate, the identity and amounts of additives mixed with the diamond crystals, and the size of the diamond crystals. The duration, pressure, and temperature as well as the variation of pressure and temperature with time during the HPHT process also affect the properties of the PDC.